


Where the Blue of the Sea Meets the Sky - Pt. 1

by HarpiaHarpyja



Series: Tumblr Reylo Flash Fiction [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dreams, Explorer Rey, F/M, Flash Fiction, Islands, POV Rey, Selkie Ben Solo, Selkies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 14:57:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15798888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarpiaHarpyja/pseuds/HarpiaHarpyja
Summary: Rey, a seafaring explorer and scholar of legendary creatures, settles for a season in an old cottage on a rocky island coast. For a month, she dreams of a mysterious man who wanders the shore and surf in search of something he cannot find. One night, she catches sight of him—and this time it isn't a dream.





	Where the Blue of the Sea Meets the Sky - Pt. 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for Reylo Week 2018 on Tumblr, posted [here](https://thisgarbagepicker.tumblr.com/post/177317083295/thisgarbagepicker-reylo-week-2018-day-4).

_She sails alone. She is alone. She has always been alone. And when she settles in a run-down coastal cottage for a season, she intends to keep it that way._

_Until the dreams begin, each night, without fail. A man: he roams the rocky beach, wades in the water for hours, and emerges before dawn to disappear into the cliffs. He searches for something he’s desperate to find. She isn’t sure what. One night, unable to sleep, she slips outside to watch the waves below._

_He’s there. But she isn’t dreaming this time._

\+ + +

“Sir?” _Sir_. God, what a way to address a man who is standing waist-deep in cold water just outside her home, very likely naked. It seems ridiculous, but Rey is strangely unbothered. She’s been dreaming about him for nearly a month, and the dreams have not hidden much. That still doesn’t explain why he’s suddenly so real, or why she is so fearlessly drawn to him. “Do you need help?”

He blinks slowly at her. It’s a cloudy night, but when the moon does break through, its light dapples his shoulders and hair. “No. Not from you.”

She shakes her head. “Are you …? You must be cold out here.” _No shit_. She’d be cold, too. She is cold, and wants to go back inside. And what exactly is she getting at here?

“I’m not,” he says with a tilt of his head. He finds her amusing. Maybe interesting. Like something foreign to him. She’s not sure how she can tell, but she can. It’s not the reaction she was looking for. 

“Well.” Rey frowns a little, certain it is lost on him in the dark. This is her property. She has more than a right to ask errant skinny-dippers to leave. Even inexplicably familiar ones. But the thing is, she doesn’t want him to go. She wants him to stay. She wants to talk to him. She doesn’t know why. “Let me at least bring you something to put on.”

“I have clothing.” His tone is dry, like he finds this an inadequate, annoying concept. Suddenly he’s wading toward her, and she’s seeing way more of him than she was prepared to see, despite her relative composure until this point. She turns her face away and hears him say, “I leave them on the rocks to keep them dry.”

“Do this a lot, do you?” she calls back. She already knows the answer.

“I didn’t think I had an audience.”

Well, that’s presumptuous. Rey glances up, sees that he’s at least got pants on now, and raises her chin to glare at him. “You don’t. I live here. I came out to stargaze, not watch you do … whatever.”

“You live here?”

_Shit_. She shouldn’t have told him that, even if it was fairly obvious. Still, his response to the information doesn’t unsettle her. He only looks a little mystified. Then his eyes narrow. 

“It’s too cloudy to stargaze.” He’s smug. He thinks he’s caught her out.

“And it’s too cold to be swimming with no clothes on.” She returns the look. “Or at all.”

His expression shifts back to that look from before. She senses he’s intrigued. But he just keeps dressing, pulling a nondescript sweater over his head, and when he’s done, he looks almost nondescript himself. Attractive, though. Tall and well-built. She could have passed him on the streets in town before and never realized. 

“You’re surprising,” he tells her. “Your kind would usually be afraid of a strange man appearing outside their house in the middle of the night.”

_Your kind_? Whatever that means, he has a point. But she just isn’t. Rey wishes she could explain it. At least the urge to invite him in has passed. That would have been crossing a line from ‘I am quite heedless of possible risks’ into ‘I may indeed have a death wish.’

She knows she’s awake, but this feels like a dream again.

“Should I be?”

“Conventional wisdom would suggest it.” 

He’s walking away over the rocks, simultaneously surefooted and ungainly. Rey watches him for a few seconds, considering his words, then calls out, “Hey! Where are you going?” 

It’s the middle of the night. The nearest town is a twenty-minute drive. There are no lights but for the ones in her windows and the occasional dance of the moon on the sea. He has to have come from somewhere, she supposes, but she sees no car nearby and can’t imagine where he’d go that’s in walking distance. But he ignores her, or doesn’t hear her, and he just keeps walking until the dark has swallowed him up. 

She shivers, remembers how cold it is, and heads back inside, engaging both locks when she shuts the door behind her. For a minute or two, she peers out the window, wondering why it feels like she’s waiting for something. Eventually, she draws the curtain closed and turns away. This isn’t the last time she will see him. She’s certain of it. Next time, she won’t be caught so unprepared.


End file.
